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Personal computer sales fall for fifth year in a row

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"Who needs a PC or laptop...,"

Office workers? People who do a lot of writing, editing and, well, business? Have you ever tried to run a spreadsheet or work on a presentation on a phone? LOL.

13 ( +13 / -0 )

I tend to upgrade home laptop and desktop alternately every two years, so have a 4-year cycle. Office machines are on a 4-year replacement cycle, maximising depreciation. No need for the latest models; waiting 6 months for the initial launch glamour to die off, systems and software to stabilise and hardware faults to become uncovered has worked for me for years.

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Office workers? People who do a lot of writing, editing and, well, business? Have you ever tried to run a spreadsheet or work on a presentation on a phone? LOL.

While its not totally unthinkable (evernote etc) It just doesnt work as comfortable as a pc. So im looking forward to that future that we can bring a real pocket pc with us that lets us work comfortably anywhere without dragging a laptop.

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Personally I use my computer for gaming, but most PC gamers build their own rigs from individual parts so I suppose we don't contribute to sales of computer units.

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Preliminary figures from Gartner indicated that PC shipments last year tallied 269.7 million units in a 6.2% decline from the previous year.

China-based Lenovo remained the leader in the global PC market, followed by U.S. firms HP and Dell. All three increased their share of the market in the final quarter of last year, according to both industry trackers.

Here's a little extra tidbit for ya guys that might be surprising:

What people don't know too is that, while fewer people are buying computers nowadays, Mac computers are actually falling faster than the industry itself!

It's surprising because for years, Apple's desktops and notebooks outperformed the rest of the market - when the computer market grew, Macs grew faster; when the computer market shrunk, Macs shrunk slower. But not anymore.

For example in the 2 previous financial quarters:

2nd Quarter 2016 - Mac shipments shrunk 8.3%, whereas the entire market declined 4.5%

3rd Quarter 2016 - Mac shipments shrunk a whopping 13.4%, more than double the market decline of 5.7%

As a result, Apple fell from 4th to 5th in computer shipments, overtaken by Asus. (Lenovo shrunk but still 1st-place, barely edging out HP. 2nd-place HP, 3rd-place Dell, and 4th-place Asus all grew, while 5th-place Apple shrunk. The remaining market also shrunk.) Apple's global market share is down to just 7.2% - historically, Apple's share used to be above 10%. They even missed the traditional college-buying spree when a lot of students buy their computers for college.

But if ya think about, it kinda makes sense. Save for the touch bar (which doesn't convince people, for various reasons we won't get into right now), Apple hasn't really updated its lines of MacBooks and desktops, and neither has had a full redesign in years. Instead, the innovation buzz that people talk about nowadays are around the iPhone (Apple has become a company centered on the iPhone now; not much talk about the Macs these days).

Heck, Apple has instead been increasing prices while eliminating the MacBook Air - its least expensive line and the introductory Mac for most people. So without fresh new models yet even higher prices, this trend seems poised to continue - even fewer people buying Macs.

So im looking forward to that future that we can bring a real pocket pc with us that lets us work comfortably anywhere without dragging a laptop.

Ya just need to plug to a LCD screen and small keyboad/mouse, then just bring a mini-PC or compute stick with you

Laptops and desktops are best for downloading illegal movies according to some college students I recently talked to. I did not realize you could not do that on a tablet or a phone. Why not?

Speed and capacity

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Average folks who don't create content, just short emails and play simple games are happy with a ¥1000 tablet.

I'm finding my 6 yr old laptop to still be extremely fast for coding webapps. Just don't need anything faster, so until it breaks, I plan to keep it. Of course, we switched away from Windows around 2007, so the hardware upgrade train has been stopped in my household. We're more likely to deploy $50 Raspberry Pi v3 systems next desktop upgrade cycle for the kids. Builds character NOT to run Windows.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

smafo

That's a 'smart phone' for our non-Japanese resident readers.

1 ( +5 / -4 )

Who needs a PC or laptop, when they can carry a smafo in their pocket?

Depends what you use a PC or laptop for? If it is nothing work related then probably.

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Sales of desk and laptop computers declined last year, extending a slide started in 2012,

They can lay the blame where ever they like, but the start of this decline coincided with the release of Windows8.

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Laptops and desktops are best for downloading illegal movies according to some college students I recently talked to. I did not realize you could not do that on a tablet or a phone. Why not?

I prefer pencil and paper for my work. But I do need email for business. I love photoshop too which is fun, so I need a nice desktop with an Apple system. Apple is the only way to go for art.

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Personally my reason of not buying a new PC is because of the OS. I am still using the windows7.... for 5 years.

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MsDeliciousJan. 13, 2017 - 11:18AM JST I prefer pencil and paper for my work. But I do need email for business. I love photoshop too which is fun, so I need a nice desktop with an Apple system. Apple is the only way to go for art.

That is pure bs, you are locked to a few, mostly dated, CPUs and very sub par graphics hardware, if you do 3d art you are much better off with a Windows computer. If you do 2d art, you can equip a Windows computer with two 2TB SSD drives and 128GB of ddr5 memory for less than what a screen replacement costs on a Macbook pro. If you like MacOS, fine by me, but for video and image editing you can consistently ground any Macbook into powder with a Windows computer on a fraction of the budget. :) (Source: 15 years 3d modelling and game development, have department of 10 graphical artists hired, two of them on macs).

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

Who needs a PC or laptop, when they can carry a smafo in their pocket?

-9 ( +1 / -10 )

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